This innovative dating app has been chosen among four projects presented at the local competition Start-U-Cup, an entrepreneurial pitch competition organised by UMONS on 20th April 2023
Matthieu Van Der Vleugel and his partner Antoine Lesire were awarded the EUNICE Prize for their Rejoice project at the Start-U-Cup competition organised by the University of Mons (UMONS, Belgium), what means that they will represent UMONS at the EUNICE Imagine Innovation Cup in Catania (Italy) in July 2023. This will be the final phase of an entrepreneurship competition organised by the University of Catania that will oppose teams and individuals from EUNICE partner universities. Van Der Vleugel and Lesire will present Rejoice, a dating app based on scientific compatibility between users that tells you how theoretically compatible you are with the users you swiped right for, taking into account all the characteristics you mentioned in your profile.
Van Der Vleugel and Lesire are students in Management at the Faculty of Economics and Management. Van Der Vleugel enjoys the status of ‘student-entrepreneur’, a special regime in Belgium, which allows students to undertake a professional activity while completing their studies.
Start-U-Cup
The Start-U-Cup competition is a brand-new event of the University of Mons in partnership with EUNICE, Le Click, LME and UStart Mons which aims to promote entrepreneurship within the student community, and more particularly among PhD students. As part of the Month of the PhD programme, the Start-U-Cup competition assessed the viability of the project, the market opportunities, creation of the business model, clarity of the pitch, level of English, etc. Students received some advice from the jury at the end of each of the four presentations.
The competition took place in two phases: 1.-preparation workshops with, among others, the Business Developer of UMONS, David Lhoir, and local entrepreneur Alessandro Brunetti (CEO of iQrypto), and 2.-final event at Le Click: pitch of the projects in front of an audience and a jury of experts
The presentations were preceded by speeches by Tony Christiaens, hub manager at Le Click and Business Developper at LME and Joëlle Tilmanne, CEO of Hovertone.
The jury was composed of Tony Christiaens, Alessandro Brunetti and David Lhoir, but also Prof. Ruddy Watty, Vice-Rector for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Prof. Dominique Deneux, Professor at the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France (a EUNICE partner).
Apart from the EUNICE Prize, another award was granted: the LME Prize, to Loann Astorino and Maxime Manderlier for Creartiz, a contact platform for emerging artists, musical events organizers and the public.
The event was aimed at encouraging students to start a business project: “There is not only one way to succeed, starting a business is about giving birth to your ideas,” concluded Joëlle Tilmanne.
Caption: UMONS-local-phase winner posing (with certificate) among the members of the jury and other participants
